Enjoy Chapter 1 of IMPERFECT TRUST, then buy it for only 99¢ on April 1st and 2nd!
Raindrops shimmered in the van’s
headlights, hanging like glittery diamonds suspended in time. A child’s
delight.
Lucy blinked and broke the
unwelcome connection with the past. She hadn’t thought of that night in years. Outside, the iridescent raindrops splattered
against the windshield, coalesced into rivulets, and slid down the glass. The
unwanted memories went with them.
A quick glance in the rearview
mirror showed absolute blackness. She’d seen no other traffic for a long while.
Not surprising. Intel reported the area abandoned by the county during a
downturn in the economy a few years back. Only warehouses remained in this
forsaken part of Atlanta now, derelict and far gone in Mother Nature’s reclamation
project.
The rain fell in a fine mist now,
enough to keep the wipers on intermittent as she strained to see the almost
invisible center strip. She rubbed her left shoulder, aware of the dull ache
there. Wet weather seemed to exacerbate the old injury. Cold, too. The
white-knuckled grip she’d had on the steering wheel for the past hour probably
didn’t help either. There’d be no more martial arts competitions for her. And
no more boss after tomorrow, either.
A tiny, self-satisfied smile
formed. The video game world offered more than anything the government would
pay. They had their chance.
Despite having aced all the
physical requirements for rookie agents, despite her marksmanship records, and
martial arts successes, the Bureau of International Intelligence had stuck her
in a windowless computer lab to analyze and exploit network weaknesses all over
the globe. A gerbil wheel for the technology rat. They’d denied her requests to
move into the
field again and again, and instead turned her into the
very thing
she’d run from. A hacker.
Too bad she got her one and only
field assignment now. At the end. Thanks to Ed.
Strains of Bad Boy, Bad Boy filled
the vehicle. Ed had scowled something fierce when he learned she’d assigned the
theme song from Cops for his
ringtone.
She grabbed the cell phone from the
cup holder. “Hi, Ed.”
“You’re late.”
Ed Whitaker, thirty-year veteran of
the Bureau of International Intelligence, North American Corridor, and the
special agent in charge assigned to the Cypher case. Ed would never be accused
of making polite conversation. Just the facts, ma’am.
“Visibility’s bad. Wait. I see the
abandoned gas station. Less than a half mile now.”
“About time.”
She rolled her eyes at the
authoritative tone.
“Delacroix will meet you at the
surveillance point to help hook up the cables before he takes up over-watch
position. Get the files, give the signal, and get out. Nothing more. Del will
tail you back to headquarters. Got it?”
Of course she got it. He knew about
her near-perfect recall, not to mention he’d harped on the same thing during
the last dozen briefings for tonight’s mission.
A nervous flutter in her belly had
her taking a deep breath. The only difference with this assignment was she’d
traded her lab in the Bureau’s Atlanta office for one inside the armored van.
And they’d issued her a gun. Not that she’d have a chance to use it.
“Lucy. You copy?” By the numbers,
that was Ed.
“Yeah, I copy.”
“Good. We go silent now. Shoulder
mic for emergency only.”
A dial-tone hummed in her ear.
“Bye to you, too,” she grumbled and
powered down the phone. Right on time, the rain stopped. For once, the weather
cooperated with Ed’s meticulous planning.
Outside, night relinquished its
hold on the world. Monday dawned gray and dreary. She turned the big van dubbed
Bubba into the abandoned warehouse complex. Could the setup be more perfect?
The absence of civilians translated to no collateral damage. Down and dirty.
Take ’em in or take ’em out.
After three long years of chasing
the wily Cypher and always coming up a little too late and a whole lot short,
Ed finally got smart. He’d brought Lucy in but kept her involvement quiet. Only
he knew the details of what she would attempt on this sting. Ed wanted to nab
Cypher, but he wanted the drug dealer’s files more.
Goose bumps pebbled Lucy’s skin.
Cypher conducted million-dollar deals through cyberspace. If Ed was right, the
clever drug dealer used a program long considered a pipedream. He could track
computer signals to their precise geographic coordinates, which would explain
how he always stayed one step ahead of the authorities.
Quicksilver employed the same
premise, but with a twist. There’d been no time to run more than a few
laboratory simulations, though. Would her program work the way it was supposed
to in a live environment?
The van’s heater blasted the spring
chill from the air but did nada to dispel her nerves. Quicksilver had to work.
Ed needed closure on this case. And she wanted to leave the Bureau with a bang.
Lucy drove through the industrial
complex, following the route scouted earlier by the recon team. She found the
designated dead-end street positioned well away from the area of action, and
backed the customized van along the road until the pavement ended. Bubba might
not look like much on the outside with the missing hubcaps and assorted dents,
scrapes, and rust spots, but he had moxie where it counted.
The battered white Econoline E-350
stood seventy-inches high and one hundred inches long, and boasted a 6.8-liter
V10 engine with 305 horsepower and a body lined with lightweight ballistic
material that could deter armor-piercing slugs. Only a rocket launcher at
point-blank range could penetrate Bubba’s hide or the polycarbonate armored
windows.
Cypher’s arrival was pinpointed for
eleven thirty that morning. If they didn’t get him this time, they’d burned a
reliable informant for nothing.
In Ed’s typical over-prep fashion,
he’d sent in Todd Delacroix the night before, the team’s communications tech.
Del, as the other members of the team called him, planted cameras and laid
landlines that would connect with Bubba’s generator-powered control center. The
rest of the team had arrived onsite earlier, around 4:00 a.m. Ed wanted
everyone in place, even if it meant a long wait. He didn’t take chances.
As the creaks and pings of Bubba’s
cooling engine faded, Lucy reached for the hundredth time to the small holster
under her arm. With practiced hands, she lifted the gun free, pulled the slide
back, and checked the ammo load.
The shoulder mic crackled. “Lucy?”
Ed’s whispered growl made every one
of her muscles tense. Breaking radio silence meant bad things. She tapped the
speaker button to un-mute and answered. “Yeah?”
“You in position?”
“Just cut the engine.”
“Change of plans. Target is
imminent. Six minutes out.
Del is on his way to you. He’ll need your help.” Ed
disconnected.
Her heart went into overdrive.
Cypher was hours too early. She
yanked the keys from the ignition, opened the driver’s door, and dropped to the
ground. The automatic lock engaged behind her.
Off to the right, a flashlight beam
bobbed through the woods. Del, fresh from the training academy in Alexandria,
Virginia, was a technology rat like her, but with outside privileges.
Discrimination? Oh, yeah, but a battle she hadn’t won. Besides, she couldn’t do
half the stuff he did.
If Cypher could drill down to the
exact coordinates of an active IP address as Ed suspected, then Del’s handiwork
would provide eyes for the team—without a traceable computer signal to give
them away. A few more days and she might have perfected a mask for electronic
camera feeds. Instead, they used the hardwired method. It was messy and
archaic, but effective, given Cypher’s focus on technology.
Lucy met Del at the rear of the
van.
“Connect the lines while I cover
them.” He handed off a handful of quarter-inch cables. “The wire colors match
the connectors, red to red, blue to blue.”
He didn’t wait for her answer. This
might be Del’s first field op, but he performed like a veteran. But did he
understand that bad guys don’t play by the rules?
Lucy clenched a small flashlight
between her teeth and set to work, pairing the color-coded wires and twisting
them around their contact points.
Back inside the van, she opened the
panel to the cargo area and stepped through to the technical surveillance
observation post—TSOP, Ed called it. After the panel swooshed closed,
low-wattage lights flickered on.
A one-way glass window ran along
one side of the cargo area. A desk-high counter filled the length on the other
side. Two thirty-two-inch LED monitors were mounted there, each with a laptop
docked in front.
Lucy powered up both computers.
When the cursor appeared in the middle of the left screen, she spoke. “Watch
Dog, sync to camera connections. Display feeds one through six.”
The screen on the left filled with
a series of picture-in-picture video streams showing views of the tree-lined
approach from the main road, the front entrance to the warehouse, a rear entry
view, two perspectives of the rear loading docks, and one of the empty truck lots.
Thank you, Del.
On the second monitor, the crux of
the operation, two words blinked in the middle of the screen.
Authorization
required.
“Quicksilver
JG6725.”
A new word popped up, keyed to her
specific voice patterns.
Authenticated.
“Quicksilver, open command
sequence.”
Today’s deal could send millions of
dollars to an untraceable bank account on Grand Cayman. Worse, the transaction
could flood the eastern seaboard with a supply of illicit drugs.
A question appeared on the screen. Activate?
On her directive, Quicksilver would
latch onto Cypher’s computer signal without being detected. Then, camouflaged
by the source computer’s own attributes, her Trojan program would slide down
the captured signal right into the heart of Cypher’s operating system. From there,
she could copy all readable and executable files, download them to a cache on
her computer, and transmit them to the Bureau’s field office in Atlanta.
The cursor blinked in a steady
rhythm.
Movement on the multi-picture
surveillance monitor drew
her attention. Four cars rolled from one screen to
another until
they stopped at the loading dock. Two men per car.
Eight total. Six of them brandished what looked like assault weapons. The
seventh man, the driver, held a handgun while the last man
carried a briefcase.
“Watch Dog, zoom in twenty-five
percent on feed five. Zoom in forty percent.”
The man with the briefcase wore a
baseball cap that obscured his features but increased magnification blurred the
pixilation too much. “Watch Dog, camera feed five zoom out to normal.”
The man opened the briefcase,
removed a laptop, and set it on the hood of the SUV. He connected a small
tripod with an umbrella-like attachment, and then his fingers began moving over
the keyboard.
Oh, yeah, this had to be their
target. “Quicksilver, identify computer signals within five-hundred yard
radius.”
Five seconds passed before three IP
addresses appeared on the right monitor. Two belonged to her computers, plus
one unknown.
191.156.1.12.
“Quicksilver, acquire signal for
one-nine-one point one-five-six point one point one-two.”
A circular arrow began spinning on
the screen. The moment of truth had arrived. If Cypher discovered the
tampering, the op would turn ugly fast. Lucy held her breath and watched the
men on the screen. They appeared alert and cautious, constantly scanning the
area, but nothing more.
Fifteen seconds passed.
“C’mon, c’mon.”
At thirty seconds, words replaced
the circle. Signal acquired.
She let out an audible breath when
there was no reaction from Cypher or his men. “Quicksilver, launch Hermes.”
Hopefully, the Greek patron god of thieves would favor them today.
A full minute passed. A bead of
sweat trickled down her temple. Lucy wiped it away with her shirtsleeve. Back
in the
lab, the connection had been instantaneous.
Another thirty seconds went by
before a series of file names and paths spilled onto the screen, rolling up and
off the page too fast to follow.
“Quicksilver, open BII portal.
Transfer cached files.”
A pop-up appeared, showing the
transfer connection between the two machines. Relief flooded through her.
She looked at the surveillance
screen again and choked off the short-lived relief. Cypher’s men swarmed around
like someone had kicked their hornets’ nest. What happened? She’d taken such
care to mask Quicksilver’s signal.
Realization came with a groan.
She’d spent so much time masking Quicksilver’s entry, she hadn’t thought once
about the return transmission from
Cypher’s computer. Stupid. A novice’s
mistake. Of course, he would know if his own machine communicated out.
A bar at the bottom of the screen
slowly filled with green. Four percent. Not nearly enough.
On the surveillance monitor, laptop
guy pointed toward the woods, right at her. He said something to his men and
six of them took off at a dead run.
Lucy thumbed her mic. “Uh, Ed?”
“You got the files already?”
“Transfer is in process, but I
think Cypher’s men are on to us. Six of them are heading my way.”
On the monitor, Cypher’s frenzied
fingers stabbed at the keyboard. He stepped back, hands gripping his head. And
then he grabbed the laptop and hurled it to the ground. One doozy of a
control-alt-delete.
On Lucy’s screen, the files
continued to scroll. Amazing.
He’d trashed his laptop, but the impact didn’t break
the connection.
“Stay put, Lucy. We’re moving in.”
Cypher gathered the broken laptop
pieces, stuffed them
back in the briefcase, snatched up the rest of the
equipment,
and climbed inside the SUV. The driver sped off,
spewing gravel in their wake.
“Cypher is on the move. He and the
driver took off in a dark blue Escalade. If they go too far, I’ll lose the
signal.”
“Roger. Alpha Team move to
intercept. Bravo and Charlie stay with the plan. Lucy, it’s time for you to
go.”
“The upload isn’t complete.” The
bar had climbed to twenty-three percent. Still not enough. “I need more time.”
One of the surveillance pictures
showed Cypher’s car stopped in front of the warehouse. Instead of turning right
toward the exit, the driver went left. Toward her.
“Ed, he’s coming this way.” She
wasn’t supposed to be involved in the action.
The SUV disappeared off the
monitor. Less than a minute passed before a vehicle screeched to a halt and
blocked Bubba’s exit. The driver leapt out, a lethal-looking machine pistol in
hand, and sprinted out of sight. Laptop guy—he had to be Cypher—got out also,
using his door as a shield, holding a handgun.
A moment later a hail of bullets
struck Bubba’s passenger door.
Lucy screamed. Her heart pounded.
“Ed, they’re shooting.”
“Easy, Lucy. You’re safe in the
van. Just stay put.”
The six thugs who’d run off emerged
from the woods. Two of them half-dragged, half-carried a captive between them.
Their prisoner struggled—until a
third man clubbed him in
the back of his head. He collapsed only to be yanked
upright.
“Nooooo.” Bile burned her throat.
This couldn’t be happening.
“What?” Ed demanded.
She could hardly choke the words
out. “They’ve got … Del.”
Another dozen men converged on the
scene, some with drawn handguns while others wielded weapons right out of a Tom
Clancy movie. Cypher had brought his own SWAT team.
Her mouth dried up.
“Hold it together, Lucy.”
“Ed, I count eighteen … nineteen …
no, make that twenty men. Repeat, two-zero men, all of them heavily armed.”
One of Cypher’s thugs crept to the
van and pounded on the window where she knelt.
She jumped. They couldn’t see in,
but knew she was there.
He motioned for her to come out.
She shook her head. Not happening.
“They want me to come out.”
“Negative. Do not leave the van.
That is an order.”
Outside, one of Del’s captors stretched
his arm out to one side.
Pffft!
A shriek shattered the silence. Del
collapsed to the ground, doubled over.
Lucy jerked back from the window,
collided with the counter, and fell. On hands and knees, she crawled to the
trashcan and retched.
“Talk to
me, Lucy,” Ed demanded.
She wiped her mouth with a sleeve,
praying she wouldn’t puke again. Tears streamed down her face. “T-they shot
him,” she managed to say. “Cypher put a g-gun to Del’s hand and p-pulled the
trigger.” Her stomach lurched.
The same thug banged on the window
again.
She crawled to the window and
looked out. “Oh, God, please, no.” She slapped her hand against the window.
They’d lifted Del to his feet.
Cypher stood by his side.
The baseball cap still hid most of the drug dealer’s
features, but
she had no difficulty reading his lips. He pressed the
gun against Del’s thigh and looked at the van. He held up his index finger and
mouthed, “One.”
A vise had settled around her
chest.
He raised a second finger. “Two.”
“Nooooo!” Her fists hammered against
the glass.
“Three minutes, Lucy. Hold on.”
Del didn’t have three minutes. He
didn’t have three seconds. She glanced at the computer. Fifty-two percent.
Outside, Cypher added a third
finger and gave her a Boy Scout salute. “Three.”
“No.” She wept.
Pffft.
Del jerked and screamed again
before collapsing on the ground. Anguished cries filled her ears.
Lucy sank to her knees, face buried
in her hands, sobbing.
“Lucy,” Ed shouted.
“Oh, God, Ed, he shot Del in the
leg. He’s killing him!”
“Listen to me, girl. You can’t help
him.”
Another slap on the glass.
She couldn’t turn away. She owed
Del that much.
Del’s captors held him upright
again, though he slumped in their arms, head hanging limp against his chest.
Blood dripped from his mangled hand. More blood soaked his pants. Pooled on the
ground.
Cypher jabbed the weapon in Del’s
belly, under the flak vest.
Checkmate. If she left Bubba they
both might die, but if she stayed put—
No. She had to try. A quick glance
at the master computer.
Sixty-three percent.
She set her pistol on the counter.
The weapon would be useless against so many. Opening the front panel, she
screamed, “Wait, I’m coming.”
The killers trained their guns on
her as she clambered into the front of the van.
“Open the door.”
“Lucy, do not leave the van.” Ed’s
ferocity came through the mic loud and clear. “Acknowledge.”
Her heart pounded like an insane
woodpecker. “He’ll kill Del.”
“One.” Cypher jammed the gun harder
into Del’s torso, making him groan.
“Lucy, you will stay put. That’s an
order.”
“Two.”
“I’ll stall them. Please hurry.”
Fishing the van keys from her pocket, she dropped them on the floor. “Don’t
shoot. I’m coming.”
“Don’t do it, Lucy,” Ed shouted.
Before she could change her mind,
Lucy unlocked and opened the door. Her feet hit the ground, and she slammed the
door behind her. The automatic lock clicked.
One man rushed forward, shoved Lucy
out of the way, and yanked on the van’s door, cursing when it didn’t open. He
fired his weapon at Bubba, but the bullets ricocheted off the armored skin.
Lucy went down hard. White-hot pain
streaked through her shoulder—the all-too-familiar agony of a shoulder
separation.
Strong hands grabbed Lucy and
flipped her onto her back. Pain became agony and cascaded through her.
“Well, well, who do we have here?”
Cypher. It had to be.
He straddled her stomach and
brushed a strand of hair
from her face. “Little Lucy Kiddron, the brat genius.”
His voice was familiar, but the
agony in her arm demanded all of her attention.
He poked her injured shoulder. “Are
you still trying to play with the big boys?”
She couldn’t hold back a scream.
Knuckles brushed her cheek then,
his touch gentle. “Look at me, Lucy. Open your eyes.”
She whimpered, not wanting to put a
face to the nightmare.
“Gotta go, Boss,” someone shouted.
“Now.”
The man astride her belly laughed.
He jabbed her shoulder again. “Come on, look at me.”
“Aaagh!” Somehow she opened her
eyes.
“Better.”
She looked up into eyes the color
of midnight. Beautiful eyes framed by long lashes. Jensen Argault. The college
genius from her past. He’d presented his hypothesis for tracking computer
signatures. A flawed theory she’d debunked, embarrassing him in the process.
Jensen was Cypher.
“You stole my code, didn’t you? I
should put a bullet in you for that alone.” He smiled. “I’ll leave you a little
present instead.” A wicked-looking knife blade snicked open. “And a promise.”
Lucy’s heart pummeled against her
ribs. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.
“Run, Lucy.” Jensen sliced open the
front of her shirt. “Hide.” He dragged the flat of the blade across her throat.
“I like the hunt. And I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way.”
“Please. Please don’t.”
His smile would put angels to
shame. “Begging is nice. Remember that when I come for you.” The tip of the blade bit into the
soft skin of her chest.
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Buy IMPERFECT TRUST at Amazon for 80% off. Two days only!
